ASU's Camp Taylor seeks to inspire high school students with disabilities

Students with disabilities and their families often worry about what may happen to them after they graduate from high school. Now they have new options. This summer, from July 10–14, ASU will offer a summer camp for students with disabilities.

Camp Taylor will provide high school students, ages 14 to 18, with an opportunity to begin thinking about and preparing for college by actually living the experience in a college dorm. Hosted at Taylor Hall at ASU's Downtown Phoenix campus, students will live for five days and four nights with other students who have special needs and are considering attending ASU or a community college after graduation.

They will learn study skills, test-taking techniques, and will experience 50-minute college classes, peer-led information sessions, campus tours, and other activities created for college-bound students. They also will meet with ASU advisers, enrollment specialists, and financial aid administrators. Each student will leave with a personal plan for reaching his or her goal for higher education. 

"We sent our son to college on a wing and a prayer that he would be successful in college life," says Carolyn Warden, who has a son with Aspergers. "It would have alleviated a great deal of his fears and ours if he had had practice on studying with peers, riding the light rail between campuses, asking difficult questions and just being on campus. ASU’s Camp Taylor would have been so welcomed to our son and to our family in easing the path to higher education."

Camp Taylor is run by the Initiative for Inclusive Communities Life Coaching (IIC) at the Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy in the College of Public Programs and is staffed by staff and students at ASU including the team of highly trained Life Coaches at IIC.

Camp Taylor has the capacity to serve up to 30 students. There are four rooms with wheel chair access available.

For more information or to register, visit Camp Taylor or contact Shelly Morgan at 602-496-1481 or shelley.morgan@asu.edu.